As I read about The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan today 3 Sept, I realised that was the beautiful example of the topic of my assignment: a church which went from missionary initiation to full indigenisation. I happened to read through all the stuff on the oppression/national identity crisis and it just seem to coincide with the recent instabilities in Hong Kong and the negative comment made by an elderly Nationalist (KMT) politician with regards to Taiwan’s autonomy in response to the “93 soldiers’ celebration”!
剛好在九三軍人節時讀到台灣長老教會與國民黨的衝突!
http://udn.com/NEWS/BREAKINGNEWS/BREAKINGNEWS1/8912525.shtml
Ho, Huang Po. “Christianity and Political Democratization: The Case of East Asia”, In The Oxford Handbook of Christianity in Asia, edited by Felix Wilfred, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, 273-282.
Reinhold Niebuhr’s argument that “man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary” has been quoted frequently to elaborate the relationship between democratic systems and Christian doctrines. The Christian religion in many Asian countries is counted by both Christians and many of their fellow citizens, as an important catalyst of political democratisation.
Christian mission in Taiwan can be classified into three major consecutive waves, in which both Catholics and Protestants have participated. The first were the Spanish Dominicans followed by Dutch Reformed missions in the period of Dutch colonisation of Taiwan (1624-1662). The second was the Dominicans and later the British Presbyterian mission from the late 1850s under the Manchu occupation of Taiwan. The third was the immigration of churches accompanied by war refugees from mainland China after WWII.
The first group of Protestant missionaries led by Georgius Candidius to reach Taiwan was composed of Dutch evangelists from the Reformed Church of Netherlands, accompanied by traders of the Dutch East Indian Company. This wave of Christian mission in Taiwan ended with the defeat of the Dutch by the legendary warrior Koxinga. There was not much left of the first wave of Christian mission after the defeat and retreat of the Dutch.
The second wave of Protestant Mission was launched in 1865 with James Maxwell, who was sent by the London Missionary Society to Southern Taiwan. His team established the Presbyterian churches in Southern Taiwan, which was later united with Northern Synod Presbyterian churches to form the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan (1951).
The Presbyterian Church was the only Protestant Church in Taiwan until the time of Japanese occupation, where the Holiness Church was introduced to Taiwan and joined Christian mission in the island in 1926. The defeated Chinese Nationalist Government fled to Taiwan during the civil war in mainland China. Accompanying this exiled government were refugees, including Christians from various confessions.
The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan has actively participated in international ecumenical communities ever since its inception as an indigenous church (1951) independent of the Western missionary societies. It has been ostracized from the denominations that had moved into Taiwan after WWII. This was caused not so much by disagreement on biblical or theological matters, but by the differences of political and ideological positions derived from their perception of self-identity and from their historical experiences (i.e., Taiwanese indigenous culture, history, and religion vs. Chinese cultural and religious heritage).
The first Chinese immigrants after WWII were enthusiastically welcomed by many Taiwanese, as they were considered victors in WWII, which had resulted in liberating the Taiwanese from over fifty years of Japanese colonisation. Regrettably this exciting mood did not last too long. The corruption of the government administration disappointed the enthusiastic expectation of the people. Only two years after the Chinese Nationalist domination of Taiwan, on 28 February, 1947, a massacre took place, later remembered as the “228 massacre,” in which more than 20,000 Taiwanese elites were killed indiscriminately by Chiang Kai-shek’s military. This incident acerbated the hostile relation between the new rulers and the indigenous people of Taiwan. The following “White Terror Control” and the historical record of long Martial Law rule in the island segregated the two groups of people even further.
(So I should be quite thankful that my great grandparents of both paternal and maternal sides belonged to the “fallen elite” category, having caused their own downfalls through problems such as gambling addiction and therefore wasn’t influential enough to get massacred.)
Most people in Taiwan today are descendants from three major migrations: 1) the ancient Austronesia immigrants constituting the aboriginal tribes in Taiwan; 2) the Holo and Hakka immigration after the Koxinga occupation of Taiwan and during the following Manchu empire; 3) the followers of the Chinese Nationalist Government which retreated to Taiwan after it was defeated in the Chinese civil war. An ironic phenomenon is that the latecomers were able to seize political and economical power over the earlier settlers. A multilayer identity conflict is thus rooted deeply in this historical fame. A struggle for selfhood against the oppression from the later settlers has gradually evolved into political conflicts and revolts against the colonial ruling powers, and this has led to a nation-building movement.
After WWII, while the defeated Japan government declared abandonment of its sovereignty over Taiwan, the United States made use of the island as its supply depot to support its military activities in both Korea and Vietnam. Taiwan was thus put under General Chiang Kai-shek’s temporary administration. Struggling in the midst of different interests of the Super Powers, the nation-building movement in Taiwan has been strictly blocked by the international Super Powers, including the United States, Japan, and of course, the People’s Republic of China, while facing merciless suppression by the Nationalist government of Taiwan. Many political activists were imprisoned or forced to flee from the island seeking political asylum in other countries.
http://youtu.be/DDs5bXh4erM (a little music video to demonstrate the oppression felt by the Taiwanese)
The Presbyterian Church in Taiwan gained support from its connection with the international network and thus became the only organisation that was able to give voice to the people and be in solidarity with them in their protests during the Marital Law rule. It passed three declarations in the 1970s: the Statement of Our National Fate (1971), Our Appeals (1975), and A Declaration on Human rights (1978). The church became entangled into the political movements and had to pay its price: it was forced by the government of Taiwan to withdraw from its membership in World Council of Churches in the 1970s; its Bibles, which were printed in the local languages, were confiscated; its general secretary Dr. C.M. Kao and several local pastors were put in prison; the church was under strict monitoring of the governmental security units. The sufferings were not without fruits; by the end of 1986, the first native opposition party was formed even before Martial Law was lifted (1987), freedom of press was restored, and the Parliament members were re-elected forty years after its first election. The first president directly elected by the people of Taiwan came true in 1996. There was a power transition from the Nationalist party to the native opposition party in the year 2000.
The emergence of the so-called “Four Tigers in East Asia” (Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore) after WWII was a new phase of economic development in the continent. If the role that religions played in these four regions were examined in greater detail, the significant contribution Christianity has made can be discovered. Generally speaking, whenever the churches succeeded in gaining greater independence from political control and resisted the powers that be, their contribution to the democratisation process was highly significant. Christians in Korea and Taiwan both paid a great price when they confronted the state power, and in spite of the small size of the Christian population, they were able to become a significant factor in the democratisation process of their respective countries. The churches in Singapore have been too weak to confront the political forces. In Hong Kong, the strong Anglican Church which was hampered by its status of being a state religion of the colonial British Empire, could not play a major role in the democratisation process because they were all closely associated with the colonial authority.
Conclusion: The connection between Christian convictions on human freedom and the Western democracy are so close it is difficult to draw a clear line of demarcation. Consequently it is not easy to conclude whether the Christian contributions toward Asian democratisation are the result of Christian doctrines or the fruit of Western civilisation carried to Asia by Christianity.
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